


Associates

by LuxaLucifer



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Skyhold, just loghain being old idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 21:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3784405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuxaLucifer/pseuds/LuxaLucifer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sound of a cultured Orlesian accent hit his ears. He still had to fight the urge to sneer even after all these years. And yet, he had changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Associates

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people- including myself- were disappointed by the lack of characters from earlier games interacting with each other in Inquisition. I've haven't seen anything for Loghain and Leliana- so I thought I'd write a little something. Small reference to Loghain being gay, but no pairings.

“Warden Loghain.”

The sound of a cultured Orlesian accent hit his ears. Hestill had to fight the urge to sneer even after all these years.

He looked up from his reading, cracking his neck as he didso. Ah, he’d thought the voice had sounded familiar.

“I wondered if I’d see you around here,” he said. “I heard you’re the Inquisition’s spymaster?”

“Yes,” she said, sliding into the seat across from him. He didn’t like the looks of that. He’d been enjoying his book. “Are you enjoying your stay in Skyhold?”

“I’ve stayed in worse fortresses,” he responded, folding the corner of his book and setting it down. She winced at that but didn’t offer a bookmark.

“I’m sure you have.”

“What are you here for?” he asked. “Sister Leliana, right? Do you still go by that?”

She laughed. “Yes, that’s what they call me. I must admit, I was surprised when the Inquisitor told me you were Hawke’s friend in the Wardens.”

“Oh, Hawke called me her friend, did she?” he said, chuckling. “More along the lines of forced associates. She’s Ferelden through and through.”

“And that means?”

“Not liking me,” he replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the Fereldens I’ve spoken to recently.”

“You’ve been in Orlais for some time now?”

“I thought you sent your spies to do your dirty work,” he said. “I must be important if you’re willing to come yourself.”

“I was only curious!” she protested, raising her hands with her palms flat as if to defend herself.

“Yes, I’ve been in Orlais for nearly ten years.”

“Have your opinions changed at all?”

He’d talked to her about Orlais when he’d traveled in the Hero’s camp. He had not hidden his opinions about the place she’d been raised. For some reason, she both still remember and cared what he’d thought.

“No,” he answered. “Not substantially.”

It gave him a small amount of pleasure to watch her mouth fall open in outrage. A moment later she’d closed off her face, but he’d seen it.

“Not even after a decade serving here?”

“The people are like the people anywhere,” he said. “Which is fine. Your nobles are too busy comparing fineries and planning treason to notice anything beyond their fancy gardens. I was right about that.”

“Fine words, coming from you.” Sister Leliana had changed in the last decade, he saw.

“At least I left my plans in the open.”

She scoffed. “I doubt you have seen enough of Orlais’s nobility to judge their worth fighting darkspawn. There are subtleties that-”

“Don’t tell me what I have and haven’t seen,” he snapped, expression darkening. “I’ve spent the better part of a decade being paraded from noble to noble, the Hero of River Dane on an Orlesian leash. That is why I was sent here in the first place. I have seen your nobility, and I am not impressed.”

She examined her, eyes flickering. “I see.”

“I will grant you one thing, though,” he said. “You were right about Maric.”

“Maric?” she asked, playing her part even though she knew where he was heading.

“You said they told tales of Maric here, ones that put him in a good light. I have been in enough taverns to know you that you weren’t lying to me.”

“Oh? Did you like the stories they told?”

“None of them had any accuracy,” he said. “If I had the time or inclination, I could have delivered each tale better…but they captured the man Maric was, and for that, I give your bards due credit.”

“And not for their skills in assassinating their enemies?”

“I don’t care about that,” he said. “I suspect I won’t unless I find one above me in the night.”

“Even if one attempted to seduce you?” she said, eyes twinkling in mirth.

He laughed, surprising himself. “Are all your bards female? You may find it a bit difficult.”

Her eyebrows shot up. He’d thought it impossible, but apparently there were some facts about him were not public knowledge.

“Not all bards are women,” she said. “But most of them are, I’ll give you that.”

He rolled his eyes. “How kind of you.”

“You will deny it, I’m sure,” she said, which was never a good way to begin. “But you’re softer around the edges, if I may say so. You aren’t nearly as…”

“As?”

“Needlessly cruel,” she finished.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’d still avoid provoking me.”

“Do you believe you did anything wrong?”

“Maker, woman, I came here to read,” he said. “Not to be interrogated. I hardly get a day’s rest without someone asking me something along those lines, often in stronger words. It’s impossible to face that every day for a decade and not believe you’ve made mistakes.”

Something in his face or voice must have given away his feelings, because she got a little smile on her face that told him she’d decided how he felt. He clenched his fists, trying to channel his annoyance without snapping at her.

“Do you think you’d feel you’d made mistakes without the pressure?” she said, voice carefully neutral.

“Yes,” he said. “But sometimes I’d like to read a book in a nice library instead of performing the usual self-flagellation.” His tone brooked no argument, coming just short of having a ‘shoo’ at the end.

She had the decency to look chagrined at that. “I’ll leave you be then.”

He grunted, picking up his book.

“Would you consider joining myself and the other advisors for dinner tonight? Conversation can get a bit stale with only the same three people.”

“Last I checked, my abilities in talking to others was considered one of my weakest skills,” he said, surprised.

“You must have some stories to tell, Warden Loghain,” she said. She almost reached to touch his arm but obviously thought better of it.

“You have better things to do to listen to me.”

“If you’re still here by eight, I’ll come and get you.”

His jaw worked as the thought about it. “Fine.”

She smiled as she left, and he may have smiled back.


End file.
